Summertime
by Casey Crowe
Summary: Oneshot. Three-sentence drabbles on Sora's experiences with summer vacation. Some SoKai.


**A/N: I'm alive, I'm alive! Salem here. xD Sooo, I wrote most of these back in the winter when I was still pining for warmer months... missed posting them in the summertime completely. Ah well. The goal for this was to write three sentences each per word... so since some of them gave me more muse than others, expect to see some really lonnng sentences, haha. The pairing in this is Sora/Kairi (Crow will kill me and I'm not sure there's a lot of SoKai fans out there, but I couldn't really pair him with anyone else as this is written as though the whole you-are-the-Keybearer thing never happened), by the way, so if you're not a big fan of that, well... sorry. xD For the rest of you, though, enjoy. : D**

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**Bees:** Sora often boasted that he'd never been stung by a bee in his life. Too careful, he said, and too cautious... and running away screaming if one got too close wasn't such a bad thing, either. He'd never quite forgive Riku for putting a joy buzzer on his seat and screaming "OHMYGOD_BEE!_" just as he sat down, however.

**Blue:** When he took the time to look, Sora noticed that the color blue often showed up most during the summer. Blue was the color of the sky, the ocean, and a lot of the flowers that grew in the town square. Blue was also Kairi's favorite color ... and he didn't fail to notice that she was staring at his eyes when she said it, or that five minutes ago, her favorite color had been purple.

**Bored:** Even the most adventurous people get bored, and Sora was no exception. This excuse did not go over well with his mother when he left his grandmother at the bingo hall, however. "But _Mom..._ it took them three hours just to finish _two games!"_

**Bubbles:** Sora was the first to get first from his summer job. Riku and Kairi were still bringing up the incident two weeks later. Sora stubbornly denied knowing that half a bottle of detergent would flood the laundromat with suds.

**Camp:** Sora never ceased to amaze his friends. No more than three days after they arrived home from summer camp -- after Sora spent the entire bus ride, ferry trip and walk home complaining loudly about the "ordeals" he'd been through -- he phoned them both and asked them if they wanted to go camping at "their" island. He was absolutely flabbergasted when they both laughed and hung up on him.

**Chase:** In retrospect, Sora very quickly decided that throwing a stick at Mrs. Tilmitt's sleeping dog had been a very bad idea, and that Riku did _not_ know everything in the world -- like that Golden Retrievers will not be up for a game of fetch no matter what they're doing (such as taking a nap), and that an angry dog who's just been poked in the eye with a stick will run very, very fast.

_"Riku, if I die and you don't, consider yourself haunted!"_

_"Less talking, more running!"_

**Cloud:** Riku rarely joined in when Sora and Kairi flopped back on the sand and started picking out cloud-shapes, saying it was "too babyish." Sora didn't care -- Kairi was pretty good at defending it herself. Besides, who else was supposed to catch the really cool-looking clouds while the other two argued?

**Cold:** Sora didn't care that it had just been a joke, that Riku was sorry (only a little), or that Kairi hadn't laughed along with everyone else. Sora just wanted to drown his best friend for making him look like an idiot in front of the girl he liked. "Dropping an ice cube down someone's shorts should be _illegal_, Riku."

**Dare:** Truth or dare tended to get fairly extreme between Sora and Riku; Sora had jumped off bridges, eaten dirt, and, on one very memorable occasion, gone streaking through town. This was... different, though, and Sora could feel himself trembling as he stood on Kairi's doorstep, clutching the note he'd written her with the grip of a drowning man to a life preserver. He gulped noisily and rang the doorbell.

**Fight:** There were four lonely days when Sora refused to speak to Riku, and as a result, Kairi wouldn't speak to him -- or Riku, either -- annoyed with "stupid boys and their stupid fights." They finally did made up when Sora, unable to stand it any longer, engaged Riku in what Tidus and Wakka still reverently call "the most intense swordfight in the history of forever", lost when he tripped over his own feet, and blurted out an apology when Riku helped him up. No matter how many times she asked, though, Sora would not tell Kairi what -- or _who_, rather -- the fight had been about.

**Fire:** When the bonfire had been lit, Sora had been the first to dash home for marshmallows. In hindsight, though, naming a funny-looking marshmallow and then putting it back in the bag "for safekeeping" probably hadn't been the best idea. "Riku! You just ate _JIMMY!_"

**Fish:** Sora always looked forward to going fishing at the small pond on the island. Not because he liked catching the fish or hanging out with his friends, though (although that was a plus); he just liked scaring Kairi with the worms. "Hey, Kairi, wanna come over to my place for some _spaghetti _tonight...?"

**Fog:** His mother always complained about how gloomy the fog looked in the morning, but Sora liked it. It gave the islands a mysterious feel, like some deserted island out of a story. Maybe that was why he always slept in so late in the morning -- because he always woke up extra-early to go wander in the fog before heading back to bed.

**Game:** Sora's competitive streak never failed to show itself whenever someone brought up blitzball; Tidus and Wakka may have been fair players, but Sora was convinced that they had nothing on his "skills." It was just a matter of reminding him that blitzball was not exactly the same as baseball, no matter how similar the names were. "_Heeeeyyyyy_ batter-batter-batter swin-- wait, kick?"

**Job:** After suds-ifying the laundromat, Sora was positive he'd never get another job for the summer -- at least, not in his town. He was very, very wrong, as it turned out; his mother had kindly volunteered him behind his back. "I have to mow _HOW_ many lawns?!"

**Kiss:** He was never going to forgive Riku for this -- never, ever, ever in a million years, and he'd be hard-pressed to forgive Tidus, too, for finding the thing. Wakka was also on his hit list, come to think of it; it was his fault for starting a game of truth-or-dare while Tidus was there, still holding the -- "Frog's not gonna wait forever, Sora, quit stalling and come kiss it already!"

**Lazy: **Sora had perfected the art of escaping chores on his days off. This required a lot of creativity... and foresight, since his mother usually knew he'd be at Riku or Kairi's house. His most creative escape by far, in his opinion, was the time he'd hidden in the car in Riku's garage; his mother never did find him.

**Lonely:** Sometimes, when everyone else in the world seemed to be in a bad mood, Sora would take his boat and row out to the open water, alone. There were days where he'd drift for hours at a time, simply thinking. He never stayed away for too long, though -- Sora never _could_ stand being lonely.

**Midnight:** Sora knew Kairi's parents would kill him if this didn't work, but midnight tends to give one a false sense of bravado. He threw the stone at the window... just a little too hard, he discovered, as the bedroom light flicked on and Kairi's father began roaring about the cracked glass. Sora vaulted over the fence and bolted for home, cursing his bad arm and even worse memory -- Kairi's room was on the _other_ side of the house.

**Mud:** Whenever the tide went out, a vast expanse of sandy mud was left stretching out over the beach. Sora made it his personal mission in life to make sure Riku would meet that mud up close and personal whenever possible. "Oh, stop whining, Riku -- you only got it up to your neck this time, your mom won't care."

**Rain:** It actually didn't rain very often in the Destiny Islands, but when it did, Sora usually met with Kairi and walked around town with her -- always "forgetting" to bring his own umbrella. Then they'd go to Riku's and spend the afternoon goofing off and poking fun at one another. Sora always got strange looks at school when he said there weren't enough rainy days in summer vacation.

**Rash:** Sora was not first in the summer camp footrace, the obstacle course, the swimming competition or even first in line at lunch. Sora was, however, first to discover the patch of poison ivy behind the mess hall. "Stop laughing, Riku, you have no idea how much this itches!"

**Sand:** It had been Kairi who suggested the sandcastle competition, and Sora agreed with her completely. Only after he started building, however, did he realize why he'd never be an architect, and why Kairi was trying so hard not to laugh as she looked from his... attempt, to Riku's three-towered, moat-surrounded masterpiece. "I like it, Sora, really -- it's... _abstract."_

**Scream:** Sora had pointed out before he left that if it weren't for Riku and Kairi's company, he wouldn't want to go to summer camp at all. He vowed later that he'd never come back regardless of whether or not they were there, after he ran screaming through the trees, having apparently encountered a bear on his way to the lake. He knew that he'd _definitely_ never be showing his face again not five minutes later, when a counselor came wandering into his cabin -- with her "bear" trotting at her heels -- to ask Sora if he'd never seen a St. Bernard before.

**Swim:** Despite being born and raised on an island, Sora had always _hated_ swimming when he was little. The waves were too rough, the water was too deep, and there were obviously sharks lurking out there, waiting to turn him into Sora McNuggets. Then one day he saw Riku splashing around at the beach with "that new girl" -- as of yet, he hadn't learned her name -- and decided that the water might not be so bad after all.

**Tease:** He never could understand why Riku and Kairi liked to pick on each other so much. It was only really _annoying_, though, if they dragged him into it. "Guys, seriously, stop insulting my mom!"

**Towel:** In one of those recklessly stupid moments where he didn't care what Kairi would think, Sora twisted up a towel and whipped her with it when she walked by with Selphie and Riku; Sora, however, didn't count on Kairi yelling so loud, or the three of them having their own towels. Nearly a week later, Sora could just barely sit down without everything from the backs of his knees up to his shoulders screaming in protest. Kairi just glared and told him that he deserved it.

**Travel:** Even with his lawn-mowing money, Kairi's earnings from babysitting, and the jar of change Riku had painstakingly "earned" from the cash register at his job in the grocery store all summer, Sora knew that the chances of them catching a boat to Mexico for the last two weeks of August were slim to none. That didn't stop him from chipping in for dinner at Taco Bell, taking a nap at Kairi's place when he should have been mowing another lawn (he said it was a siesta) and doing bad impressions of Speedy Gonzales before every race with Riku. Who needed to travel, anyway, when they had the Island?

**Wind:** Windy days were reserved for kite-flying competitions; it was an unwritten rule amongst the three of them. Sora liked to go all-out whenever he could, but sometimes he threw a little _too_ much effort into his kites. "Sorry, Riku, I can't come swimming -- I'm still grounded for losing the clothesline, the broom, the mop handle and Mom's best sheet -- who knew it'd actually _fly_, though...?"

**Wish:** Sora spent more than one night during the summer staying up late to stargaze, but it was the night that Kairi came with him that would remain etched in his mind forever. Lying in the grass, trying very hard to keep his focus on the stars when Kairi was lying so very close -- Kairi squealing at a pitch only dogs could hear upon sighting a shooting star, seizing his hand _(he gasped)_ and demanding he make a wish with her. Sora stared into her eyes _(like the stars)_, smiled, and silently wondered what the point was in wishing for something when it's already there.

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**A/N: Loved it? Hated it? Hit the review button and let me know. D **

**Also... the parts about summer camp may or may not be a prelude to a fic-in-the-making. ;D And for those of you who are still waiting on Schism (if there are any of you left) then I thought I'd let you know that my muse is rekindling... if I can find the half-written chapter I have saved on my old PC, then it may just be getting revived. xD;**


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